354 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



amount of food for its inhabitants, whatever went out of 

 it created a void which was not filled up by any return. 



Part of the taxes followed the same course. Direct 

 taxation, indeed, was not in itself heavier than the rent, 

 since it amounted to only 5 francs per hectare, whilst 

 in England it was 25. But in England this was spent 

 upon the spot ; whereas in Ireland, the greater part 

 going to pay the Anglican clergy, who were almost as 

 great absentees as the landed proprietors, constituted, like 

 the rent, a certain yearly loss. What remained behind 

 but ill performed the part due from taxation in every 

 well-governed country namely, the increase of national 

 capital in roads, bridges, canals, public buildings, and 

 maintenance of the public peace. 



The same disadvantage did not result from the middle- 

 man's profit, as that remained in the country, but it 

 scarcely ever returned to farming. 



These are certainly powerful causes of impoverishment. 

 Still they were not sufficient to account for that state of 

 misery into which the greater part of Ireland had fallen, 

 apart from the mad multiplication of the rural popula- 

 tion : in this lay the root of the evil. Even with the 

 regular export of rent and a portion of the taxes, and in 

 the absence of capital, public as well as private, the rural 

 population would have been able to live, had they been, 

 as in England, less numerous by half. The enormous 

 number of starving beggars had upset all the principles 

 of production. At one time Ireland was not nearly so 

 populous : in 1750 the population was two millions; and 

 in 1800, four millions, instead of the eight millions of 

 1846. The whole island formed then but one immense 

 pasture- country, for which by nature it is best fitted, and 

 which is the most profitable account to which it can be 

 turned. When this superabundant population arose, the 



